[shigfrag]

Perhaps this isn't completely off-topic but I felt the need to label it as such anyway. So, I know a lot of you scan tons and tons of cards and I'm curious to know your methods, tricks, shortcuts, and basically just what it is you do to keep it from driving you insane. Would love any advice you'd share with me, a less-experienced scanner. How many cards at once, what software do you use, etc.

If any of you that scan hundreds/ thousands of cards would just give a walkthrough of your process and how you go about doing it, I'd love to hear. I find it so tedious and time-consuming and am sure that there's something I could be doing differently.

For what it's worth, I'm using a HP 4500 and I do my editing/ naming and all with both Windows Live Photo Gallery and Irfanview (not real sure why I use one sometimes and one other times).

[itsdagooch]

I guess it all depends on what your preference is. On a regular scanner, you can pack 8-12 cards into one scan, that is knocking some birds outta some trees when it comes to scanning. I personally like to individually scan my stuff, and like semi-nice scans of the cards I decide to let into the light. I use a Canon MP190 Scanner/Printer, (30$ at Wally's World). It takes REALLY great scans, and lets me have a lot of options when scanning.

I usually space my haul on any given scan about a 1/4" away from each other. I use this method with penny-sleeved cards (best scans IMO), top loaded scans, one-touch holders, and graded slabs (worst scans IMO).

In my "scanning options" which I am sure every scanner has, it allows me select what "dpi" (dots per inch), which I have found personally a good setting for me is 400 dpi. If you play a little with the dpi on your own scanner, you can find a happy-medium to your "scan-time / quality" that is most preferable to you. (Depends how patient you are). So like I said, its really up to you what you like.

Secondly, the importance of filling your scanner with cards not touching each other and keeping about a 1/4" distance is the ability for "single scans" or "files", which you are creating. In the "scanning options" on my Canon program, it gives me the choice of "multiple documents", which will allow me to scan several cards at once, yet only scanning the card only, or the card and the toploader, etc, This way, when I am done scanning and ready to load on photobucket, image shack etc, I do not need to modify or "crop"/"downsize" any of my pictures, thus relieving you from using a photo program to edit your pictures.

With my particular method, it gives me nice scans, and doesn't take a lot of time. I can scan 30-40 cards and have them loaded into photobucket and ready to go in 30 minutes, which is good for me because I am lazy. LOL

I hope my report is informative for you, and feel free to post or pm me if you have any troubles/questions.


Here is a sample of one of my beautiful scans. LOL

[shigfrag]

Cool, thanks gooch. Yeah where I get real frustrated is when I do space cards apart in order to have them save as separate files, it rarely works correctly. Like if I do three cards, almost always there's two files as a result. No rhyme or reason from what I can see as to what makes it see two cards as being one object and leaves the third on its own. So then I end up in the editing software splitting them and getting frustrated with the whole process.

[deuce6000]

I took your advice from a few weeks back gooch and got a cannon I don't think they sell the MP190 anymore because they didn't have any but they have MP280's for the same price and they really are great scanners.


Shigfrag I think you have your scanner set to scan and then crop to a certain size and that's why it does that.

[rburkett]

Perhaps this isn't completely off-topic but I felt the need to label it as such anyway. So, I know a lot of you scan tons and tons of cards and I'm curious to know your methods, tricks, shortcuts, and basically just what it is you do to keep it from driving you insane. Would love any advice you'd share with me, a less-experienced scanner. How many cards at once, what software do you use, etc.

If any of you that scan hundreds/ thousands of cards would just give a walkthrough of your process and how you go about doing it, I'd love to hear. I find it so tedious and time-consuming and am sure that there's something I could be doing differently.

For what it's worth, I'm using a HP 4500 and I do my editing/ naming and all with both Windows Live Photo Gallery and Irfanview (not real sure why I use one sometimes and one other times).

I use an Hp 4850 which is close to what you are using. You can fill the deck with whatever fits and drag a box around each card, scan and select another scan until you scan them all then process them. If you are going to be scanning a lot of cards, try to have you save location close to the root directory so you don't have to click through a bunch of sub-directories to save them.